As I thought that my mind was instantly filled with his vision. I was staring down at his hand. He then looked up and looked at me, curly brown hair and dark brown eyes. I was wearing light blue jeans, dark purple shirt, a black jacket, and, of course, my gloves.
“This is weird. I just turned my head to look at you and instead I’m looking at myself. I look quite nice, pretty proud of myself.” I watched myself laugh and then our vision became our own again.
Naldri giggled, and I thought I noticed their cheeks turn a little pink, but their beard made it hard to tell. It made me wonder if I should have paired the two of them together. Then again, playing matchmaker wasn’t exactly in my job description.
“We should get moving,” Liam said, as he slung a much larger gun over his shoulder. I wasn’t an expert on guns, but it wasn’t like anything I’d seen before. Perhaps it was something the dwarves and Twitch helped come up with.
It didn’t take long to start seeing evidence of battle. The occasional small fire, ice patches, and traces of blood became more and more frequent as we got closer to the boundary. They’d done well keeping it inside like we’d planned.
And then we stumbled upon our first body.
He was human. One of Alex’s troops that had been following the dark elves. He was leaning against the wall, his head hanging limply to the side. A small pool of blood had formed underneath him.
I turned my head away, unable to look at him any longer. “We’ll split up here. Keep me updated. Text me if something is going wrong or you need backup. Flick, try to use the mark sparingly, only if I need to see what’s happening.”
“Understood, Captain.” He lazily gave a mock salute and smirked at me.
I rolled my eyes and waved good-bye. Cam and I continued straight while the others split up.
There was a tense silence that filled the space between Cam and me. It wasn’t unwelcome, though. It helped me focus on my surroundings.
After a few blocks we could start to hear the battle. Another two and we could see it.
Three of Alex’s soldiers were fighting two dark elves, but I could tell they were losing. A man lay limply off to the side, blood oozing from a head wound. “Cam, help him,” I said, nodding over to the man.
She nodded and rushed over to him. She kneeled beside the man and laid a hand on his head, then got to work on healing him. I turned my attention back to the fight.
The two dark elves were barely trying; they were casting spells occasionally but hadn’t even touched their guns at their hips. Their lips were moving too, like they were talking to each other. Alex’s people were breathing heavily, diving out of the way of spells, and using up their ammo.
I stepped forward and lifted a finger to the dark elves, dragging Life Force through me to the tip. I watched a small orange flame on my finger light and grinned to myself before releasing a steady stream of flame at the dark elves. They jumped back and looked over to me. They grimaced, and one used magic to break a large piece of concrete from the wall of the parking garage next to him and fling it at the three soldiers. They couldn’t avoid getting taken out by it, but thankfully Cam was there to take care of them.
None of us moved for a few moments, each of us sizing the others up. The one on the left was a woman with long white hair, and the one on the right was a man with lilac hair that fell to his shoulders.
It was the man who moved first. He threw his hand up, sending shards of ice in my direction. I quickly countered with a blast of flame to melt them away. What I hadn’t counted on was the flames hiding the two dark elves from my vision.
Two shots went off.
I felt the world moving in slow motion. I raised my arms, bringing up a thick slab of rock a few feet in front of me, but it wasn’t quick enough.
The bullet tore through the flesh in my left shoulder, taking me to the ground with it.
“Casey!” Cam screamed, her voice breaking.
I lay on the ground, everything feeling quite far away, and the world moving too fast to be normal. “Cam.” I could feel my lips moving and words coming from my mouth, but none of it felt like me. “Cam, stay back.” I touched my shoulder and pulled my hand away to look. My fingers shone red with blood and swam before my eyes.
Casey! Casey, are you okay? Cinder’s deep voice echoed in my head.
Don’t come get me. I can handle this. I just wasn’t paying attention. I’m fine. I can’t even feel much pain at all. Thank the Old Ones for shock, am I right? I tried to laugh but couldn’t find it in me.
Of course Cam hadn’t listened and was kneeling beside me seconds later. “Casey, Casey, are you okay?”
I started trying to sit up, but Cam pushed me back down gently and brushed hair from my face. “Dark elves,” I gasped as Cam tried to pull my shirt away from the wound.
“I bought us some time. Don’t worry about it right this second, focus on me right now,” she whispered as she gingerly pulled my jacket down my shoulder. “I’m going to cut your shirt away, okay? It’ll let me see what I’m dealing with better.”
I frowned. “No, this is my favorite shirt.”
“No it’s not,” she whispered with a small grin as she focused. “The galaxy tank top is. And if you really care about this shirt, I’ll get you a new one. Just don’t tell Regan; I think she’d take this out of context.” She chuckled, and I could tell she was using magic to cut my shirt, but I couldn’t think of what spell she was using. Everything was too fuzzy to make sense of.
“What did you do to stop them?” I groaned as she pressed her palm against the hole the bullet had ripped through my shoulder. I think she had just cut away the sleeve instead of the whole thing, which was good. I didn’t need to be shirtless the rest of the day.
“I buried them in the ground,” she said absently. “I’m going to have to get the bullet out. I’m sorry if this hurts, just bear with me.”
“You’ll have to tell me how you did it.” I tried not to tense up at the thought of Cam removing the bullet.
“I will later.”
And then there was the agony of slowly pulling a piece of metal lodged in my flesh back out. I swear my screams echoed through the city for weeks afterward.
“It’s over, it’s over,” Cam finally said, pulling her red hand away. “Not even going to have any scarring, it looks like.”
“You were always so good at this,” I said between heaving breaths. I reached up to touch my shoulder and felt where there was still lingering pain. Instead of a ragged hole, I found smooth skin.
“It doesn’t normally take so long. I’m sorry, I don’t know what—”
“The whole bringing people back from the dead thing, remember? Break the rules and get punished with horrible scars and terrible healing,” I said as I pushed myself into a sitting position.
“They’re not horrible,” Cam whispered and tucked a lock of unruly hair behind my ear. “They’re just proof that you’re a really brave and caring person.” She dropped her hand and cleared her throat. She turned her gaze away and said, “We should get going.”
IT WAS dark by the time we reached the tree. And just as I had expected, the fighting got heavier the closer we got. And surrounding the tree was the heaviest I had seen yet.
Cam and I had sneaked into a nearby building and were looking out one of the windows on the third floor, between the blinds to help avoid notice.
“There are at least twelve of them. Casey, we may be good mages, but we’re not that good,” she whispered and stepped away. She crossed her arms over her chest and chewed her bottom lip.
“We’ll get the others here, then; we can attack them all at once and catch them off guard.” I took a deep breath and focused my Life Force on contacting Flick.
I was sitting against a wall, wiping blood from an electric blue blade. Flick’s hand paused, probably as he was assessing the situation he was seeing.
“Liam,” Flick’s rough voice sounded odd from inside his head. “I think we should head toward Casey.
We’ve found what we’re looking for, and she’s gonna need some help.”
I broke the connection and moved away from the blinds. I pulled my phone out and unlocked it, writing out a text to Liam, Flick, and Naldri explaining where we were and to text me when they were in a safe place nearby.
Cinder, they’ve surrounded the tree. There are a bunch roaming around and looking like guards almost while two or three are inspecting the tree. I don’t know what they want, but you should get here now. Carry Naldri, you’re much faster that way, I told him as I sent the message.
What is it they want there? Can you tell?
No. They’re just looking; they haven’t done anything with it as far as I can tell. I don’t know what it is they think they found, but it can’t be good if they want it.
On our way.
“They’ll be here soon,” I said and resumed looking through the blinds.
We didn’t talk for a few minutes, and then Cam cleared her throat nervously. “So, we’ve all been wondering about Regan.”
“She’s fine,” I said firmly.
“You shouldn’t lie,” Jaysun whispered softly in my ear. I didn’t even flinch anymore. He had been almost like a constant companion, like Cinder. Cinder worried about it, as did I, but we couldn’t do much about it.
“You know people were already freaked out when they found out you’re connected with that dragon thing, but most people see it as a promising sign considering you are sharing blood with the good guys at least. Your veins are gold. People can’t help but see it as a good omen. Most of the reason why people are wary of you isn’t you, it’s Regan. They heard that she’s on the evil side of the story, and the black veins don’t help much either.”
“Well, we know that she’s not a bad guy, that’s what matters.” I tried to sound confident, like this wasn’t an issue.
“I know, Casey, we all know. I don’t want to talk about if she’s good or not. I was there last year. I know what kind of person she is. The problem is that the people following you don’t, and she’s not helping the rumors with how she’s locked in her room all the time now, and have you looked at her lately? People don’t need to make up stories about what she looks like anymore. She fits all the scary qualifications minus the horns and tail.”
“Well, she could have those too. I mean, when was the last time you saw her?” Jaysun was inspecting under his fingernails and leaning against the wall beside me.
I refrained from telling him to shut up and instead spoke to Cam. “She’s fine. I know she looks rough right now, but she’s sick. And even if she wasn’t sick, you have to admit that going through all of that is going to affect her.”
“Is she sick, though? I mean, it’s been months and she’s just getting worse and worse. Maybe you’re not talking about physical illness, though,” he said.
I wanted to tell Jaysun to stop, to get out of my head and leave me alone, but I couldn’t with Cam beside me.
“I’m just saying we need to figure out how to help her. We can’t just let her sit in her room alone and get worse.”
“This isn’t the time, Cam. We can talk about this later.” I knew my voice was cold, but I couldn’t talk about Regan right now. She wasn’t the girl I met a year ago. She was someone completely different, and not in a good way. She was beginning to scare me.
“All right.”
Thankfully we didn’t have to sit in awkward silence for long, because then Cinder started talking to me.
We’re here. Naldri is looking at them now through the window. There are a lot of them. Are Liam and Flick here yet?
Not yet. I’m hoping they’ll be here soon. Cam just tried talking to me about Regan. I did one final count of the dark elves and then walked across the room to the sofa and sat down, fiddling with my phone while I waited for a text from Liam.
We can’t avoid this topic forever with her. Or anyone else for that matter. We have to figure something out. Cinder and I had talked at length about Regan multiple times, but we hadn’t come up with a solution, just lies about why she was holed up.
We need to figure out what she’s doing and how we can help. I’m sure it has something to do with this whole “evil ancestors” shit. Karath got to her. But that doesn’t explain how sick she’s been looking. She probably hasn’t slept at all in weeks. And we know she hasn’t been eating. Something is very wrong. I sighed and rubbed my eyes. She won’t even talk to me, Cinder. I don’t know what I can do.
We’ll figure it out.
My phone vibrated and a message showed on the screen.
“It’s Liam: they’re here,” I told Cam and stood, moving toward the door.
I told everyone to get into a good position and wait for another text from me.
Cam and I sneaked down the stairs and outside to a good vantage point that kept us hidden for the most part. There we waited and watched the dark elves mill around, looking for an opportunity. I had the text message typed out and my finger hovering over the Send button, shaking with anticipation.
And then it happened. It was small, but it was enough.
One of the people who were investigating the tree called over two of the guards. They began talking about something that the guards didn’t seem to find very interesting, judging from the dull look in their eyes. One of them even began making motions to another guard off to the side who laughed and nudged someone beside him.
Our moment.
I hit Send and waited only a second to jump out from our hiding place and sprint into the small park that had been made around Cam’s grave.
I was able to take out one of the guards quickly and then turned my attention to another who was holding his gun up, taking aim.
He must have failed his weapons test or something because he missed twice and his hand began to shake. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t use magic if he was such a bad shot, but I didn’t have time to worry about such trivial things.
I slammed my foot to the ground, sending magic through the earth below us. As it passed through the ground, it hit something, and the magic flared uncontrollably. The dark elf’s eyes widened, and he turned and started running in the opposite direction, but the Life Force reached its target and a ring of flames burst from the ground and engulfed him. I raised my hands to help shield me from the heat and light of the ten-foot flames that licked at the air and strained to grow and devour even more.
I held my hands out in front of me and sent streams of water toward the flames to put them out.
“Casey, what the fuck?” Flick shouted as he lunged with his sword toward a dark elf, who sidestepped. Flick raised his hand and pressed it to the man’s face, and stone started creeping up his neck and encased his whole head in seconds.
“I have no idea what it was!” I shouted back as I moved onto my next enemy. I was completely in control of myself now. I had taken down the wall that blocked a good chunk of my Life Force a year ago and was completely in control of my magic again. That shouldn’t have happened.
The battle went surprisingly smoothly. None of the dark elves used magic and most of them went down without too much of a fight. Soon we were all standing around the tree, breathing heavily, and waiting for someone else to make the first move.
Cam began checking on everyone and healing minor wounds, and I stepped forward and laid a hand on the trunk of the tree.
I instantly pulled it away like I had been shocked. “What is it, Casey?” Liam asked when he saw.
“It has its own Life Force.”
“Big woop, everything has Life Force,” Flick said casually.
“Not like this. This thing has the equivalent of a mage.” I pressed my hand to it again. “They wanted this Life Force, but why, what do they think it can do?” I mumbled to myself. And then it hit me. What my magic had hit in the ground. It was a root. “Naldri, you may want to order some dwarves here,” I whispered.
“Why would I do that?” They were focused on a particular bloodstain on their dress instead of the tree.<
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“It’s an amplifier. It obviously can’t cast spells, so instead it stores all of this extra Life Force. The dark elves wanted to use it as an amplifier, like my gloves or Cam’s ring but much stronger. If we can figure this thing out, then that will be another advantage on our side. That’s why they weren’t using magic. It’s unpredictable.” I was now babbling to myself.
“How’d it get Life Force like this?” Flick asked suspiciously.
“Cam grew this tree to save us from Jaysun”—
“It was quite impressive from my angle. You should have seen it,” Jaysun remarked lazily. I ignored him and continued what I was saying.
—“and when she died, we buried her in it. It must have already been compatible with her Life Force and absorbed what was left.” I turned to face Cam who was staring at the tree with a strange look. “You must have released a lot of Life Force over a very long time for this to happen. Perhaps it’s because of what you did in the Veil. You said you continued to practice magic?” She nodded. “Is that common? Do most mages do that?”
“No, not many. Most of them thought I was strange. The Veil is bare. There’s no use for magic when there is nothing around you. Mages usually practice for a month or so and then they lose any reason to do anything. It’s why so many fade out of the Veil. They lose their will.”
“You continued with magic. Was it to protect yourself? Was there something in the Veil that you needed magic for? Maybe the reason why you continued using magic had an effect on the tree. Maybe it sensed your spirit was in danger and sought to find a way to protect you, even though it was on a different plane of existence.” I was talking impossibly fast, and I could tell no one was listening anymore but instead they were inspecting the tree on their own.
Cam looked over at me and then down at the ground. “You were my reason.”
I blinked in surprise and looked back at the tree. “It’s marvelous. We have to get a team down here immediately to start getting a closer look at it. This is amazing.”
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